


Arsonist's Lullaby

by RestlessWanderings



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hartwin, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Tissue Warning, arsonist!Eggsy, major character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:24:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3818722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RestlessWanderings/pseuds/RestlessWanderings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Eggsy is an arsonist, Harry is shot (and lives), and everything goes up in flames.</p>
<p>(But yes, there is a happy ending)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arsonist's Lullaby

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Hozier's Arsonist's Lullaby. Hope you like it! :)

He curls into himself, pressing his back to the wall and wishing it would devour him. He’s shaking, trembling in the darkness, hands clenched into fists and pressed over his ears, a flimsy barrier against his mother’s muffled, choked sobs. Dean is yelling, screaming. Things are crashing and shattering and he can’t hear his pulse over the noise in his head – the screeching, numbing voices that reverberate through his cranium like an echo in a cave.

He flinches away from them; squeezing his eyes shut, pressing his fists into his ears so hard that pain blooms on either side of his head. He breathes, tries to focus on anything else than the caterwaul in his skull and the cacophony in the flat. He’s not sure what happens but he’s got a box of matches in his hands and he’s striking one, breathing in the acrid stench of the newborn flame.

The light is soft and flickering in the darkness, illuminating the empty clothes hangers that hang above him. Slowly, slowly, the screeching in his head peters out into a soft lullaby, the warmth of the flame a balm against his nerves. The boy allows the flame to lick at his fingers, wincing at the pain before blowing the light out. The hurt is still there, dull and throbbing, and he feels a small grin on his face. Sure, it hurts, but anything is better than being numb.

 

Eggsy is young when his father dies. He doesn’t remember much of it – just a nice looking man with soft brown eyes and a cold pink medal that he still wears close to his heart. The man leaves and Mum is weeping he takes a moment to wonder when Dad is coming home before stumbling towards his mother. Her arms are warm as she pulls him into her lap and she cries for a long time, not letting go for a long while.

After, things continue on. His father doesn’t returns and when he realizes that he’s never coming home _(he’s dead he’s dead he left us all alone),_ Eggsy becomes a steadfast presence next to his mum. She doesn’t smile too much anymore, but Eggsy knows what stunts he can pull, what faces he can make, and what jokes he can tell that’ll chase away the darkness in her eyes, if only for a few minutes. But she’s still now, too often sleeping in late and staying indoors and telling him to be quiet, to her sleep. So he goes to school and studies hard and returns home to near silence, quickly seeking out his room so as to not disturb her.

And it’s in this silence that he begins to notice it: a distant thrumming in the back of his head, a tingling in his hands. Over the next months the thrumming becomes a buzzing and the buzzing becomes a whisper, insistent but kind. He talks to it when he’s lonely and it understands in an unintelligible, gibberish kind of way.

(It’s not an actual voice, more of a longing, but he figures that out later, much later, when dichotomizing it from himself doesn’t do a damn thing to help him)

He wants to tell his mum, he really does, but she’s tired and needs her rest and so he leaves her be.

 

Eggsy’s nine when he discovers fire. One of his mates stole a box of matches and when school let out they run to a nearby alley and begin striking them, one after another, trying to set things on fire despite the rain that had fallen not five minutes earlier.

He shakes his head as the voices screech at him. There’s a small bubble of panic in his throat because they’ve never been this harsh and he can barely understand them on the best days, let alone when they’re so loud he can’t hear his mates’ laughter next to him. His hands are trembling as he reaches for a match and the voices seem to hold their breath, quieting until they’re no louder than a bumblebee’s buzz next to his ears. He lights the match and –

\- they’re singing, soft edged and silky in his head as the flame bursts into being. The bubble of panic pops and his eyes sting with relief. They’re happier than they’ve been in a long time and he doesn’t notice the flame touching his fingertips – only recognizes the heat and the life in his veins.

Jamal slaps the match from his hand before it can do any real damage. Eggsy startles, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights, shoulders relaxing as his hearing comes back to him and the voices are no more than a dull roar in the back of his mind.

(His friends laugh it off and he joins in and an hour later he goes into a tiny local store and steals his first box of matches. He goes home and strikes twenty matches in the span of ten minutes and and _and_ )

 

A year later and Dean shows up, looking scruffy but somewhat put together. When Eggsy meets the man and his son for the first time the voices scream at him, a high-pitched wail that echoes through his head for the rest of the day _(and for the next fifteen or so years)._ Dean’s hand is rough when he shakes it and he has to fight the urge to recoil at the man’s too warm touch (it’s nothing like a flame’s touch – it’s sweaty and putrid and wrong wrong _wrong)._

Eggsy doesn’t say anything because Mum is smiling and that’s all he’s ever wanted. He just wants her to be happy and if this rough man and his weasel son make her happy than he’ll deal.

(Dean smokes and leaves matchbooks everywhere and Eggsy has a steady supply even if he has to hide in his closet to light them up and remind himself that he can still feel warmth)

But then things get shitty and it feels like the world is crashing down on him. Dean becomes less of a background in Eggsy’s life picture and becomes the main focal point to which everyone else orbit around like planets around the Sun. The beatings start and there’s little light to be found in this ice age and the voices are getting more insistent. He’s had to start lighting matches at school, in the back of the bathrooms and he’s getting more numb by the day and –

He knows something’s wrong with him. He knows his head shouldn’t feel like it’s stuffed with cotton, knows that the urge to burn things ain’t right. But he can’t tell his mum because he doesn’t want her to worry _(she should worry about herself because he can hear the beatings and can see the bruises and he tries to fight but he’s too small and Dean’s too big and all he want to do is **burn Dean to the ground** ), _and there’s no chance he’ll show that kind of weakness to anyone, not even to Mum, especially not when Dean could be lurking just around the corner.

Time passes.

So, when shit gets rough, Eggsy drops by the store and sneaks more matches _(he doesn’t know how but Dean has started to notice the missing matches and now hoards them like they’re diamonds)_ and he’ll wait until night falls, until Dean passes out and Mum falls asleep, to secret himself away into his closet and light them. The soft light is a relief on his frayed nerves and the warmth is like a long forgotten dream. But it’s the way the numbness recedes that leaves him scrambling to light another match. He’ll let his fingertips burn to the point where he’s biting his lip to stifle whimpers just to remind himself that he can still feel.

(Pain is a feeling and he hates it, he does, but anything is better than being numb)

(He’d tell Mum but she’s pregnant now and it’s been years and it wouldn’t do anybody any good)

It reminds him that he’s still useful, that the things Dean say about him being a waste of space and that he’d be better off dead _(like his Dad and he sometimes wonders how life would’ve been like had he lived but banishes the thought)_ aren’t true because without Eggsy this beautiful flame would not be flickering between his fingertips and that’s gotta count for something. Right?

(And it makes the voices sing instead of scream and it’s the closest he can get to tranquility. He can go through six, nine, twelve matchbooks in a night if he’s not careful)

But he can control it, can control the voices, can control the urges and everything’s fine. Burning up matchsticks is enough.

  

Except when it isn’t.

 

Eggsy grows older. The call of the fire morphs from an urge to a need, the voices losing the soft edge of childhood and turning vicious. He can’t stand the closet anymore – he’s grown too much and though it used to mean freedom now all it feels like is a cage, like he’s backed himself into a corner and won’t be able to get a hit in. He takes to the streets: alleys, old lots, mostly abandoned places, even a few buildings that house people needing to recover from their highs. His stealing is growing bolder. There’s more stress than ever to bring money home and Dean, the bastard, is really starting to beat up on him, really starting to allow his goons and that damn beast of a son of his to use him and dirty him up _(he disappears when they’re done, fleeing into the night, a screeching in his head and fire in his blood)._

And one night, it all shatters.

He’s checked the jar next to the fridge for money, expecting to find it half full with wadded, dirty bills. When he sees it’s empty it’s a shock so severe that his head almost goes quiet because… _no._

_(That’s Daisy’s money. That’s money for her food and her medicine and her diapers and her clothes and her baby powder that’s **her** money where the **fuck** is it)_

His pulse is pounding in his ears as he turns towards the living room where Dean is lounging on the couch, his son next to him. Mum is in the middle, glancing over at the bundle in Rottweiler’s arms and Eggsy clenches his fists, muscles rigid at the sight of six-month-old Daisy in the hands of such a vile person.

Words are exchanged and the voices are at a fever pitch and Rottweiler’s standing, Daisy in his arms, a glint in his eyes that says he’ll drop her or hit her if Eggsy ain’t careful, so Eggsy leaves before he can do something stupid, flying across rooftops and doing anything to keep moving. He runs until he comes across a small, abandoned warehouse and the need is too strong, thrumming through him like a siren’s call and his hands are trembling as he grabs for a matchbook (‘cause he always has one, two, three on him at all times, not that anyone knows) and there’s rage so thick that he can taste copper on his tongue and his vision blurs and –

He’s not sure what happens in the next minute and a half. One moment he’s enraged to the point of wanting to kill, of wanting blood on his hands, striking match after match. The next he’s breathing in smoke, watching flames lick up the sides of the building and reveling in the tranquility of it all, of the searing heat and the too bright flames. It feels good, so much better than a few matchsticks and _Christ_ , the voices are fucking _gone._

The silence of his mind is more shocking than not finding the money and he’s not numb anymore. He can feel the adrenaline rushing through him and he feels so god _damned good_ that he almost forgets to run when he hears the sirens. Afterword, alone in his room, his hands still shake but not from anger so thick it’s blinding - no, they tremble from adrenaline and ecstasy and he wonders if this is what it’s like for drug addicts, for alcoholics, for every addict out there.

He wonders if this is what its like to feel like a god.

But then he wonders he’s actually a demon ‘cause surely someone that loves the destruction of a fire this much is a monster, is abnormal, is a psychopath.

(The news that night says that the fire didn't hurt anyone and Eggsy lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. He may be a monster but he still has his morals)

  

Eggsy gets older. There are more fires: a brush pile in a lot, more warehouses, more left-for-the-elements buildings that mysteriously go up in flames. He starts to carry lighters and for pretense starts smoking a bit. There’s the one time he ever used an accelerant (but it goes out of control and he’s trapped and _oh god oh god he can't die like this, can’t die and be sacrificed to the demons in his head and who’ll take care of Daisy and Mum and and **and**_ he barely makes it out. Scurries off like a thief and barricades himself in his room. He hears from the television (Dean always has it on too loud, but not loud enough, not for the voices) and learns that the fire destroyed the old building but spread to an even older bakery, destroying the lives of the elderly couple who lived and worked there and killed their dogs (two of them) and the couple was severely burned and that’s when he promises, swears to himself that he’ll never touch a match again, or a lighter or anything of the sort).

(But it had felt so good - his head had never been quieter and he had never, ever, felt more alive and _oh_ , for a moment he felt like a god, the flames his ambrosia. He could drink the ichor until the end of days)

(He lasts a week)

(But he gains a code. A few rules, but only one actually matters: no harm is to come to any living thing, whether human or animal)

  

Eggsy gets older. Joins the marines. Continues to play around with matchsticks, still looking for ways to quiet the voices without causing harm to anyone. Nothing works but the marines teach him control and he now has his need and voices on leashes, too thick to break.

(They strain though. The leashes are always taunt and there’s no rest)

 

He comes back when his mum needs him to and at some point gets arrested and meets Harry and for a second all he knows is that the presence of this man quiets his mind like the burning buildings never could and from that moment he’s hooked on Harry. He’ll do whatever it takes to stay by his side, including joining Kingsman, and he feels like an addict going from one drug to the next, desperate to keep the high but more desperate for the voices to stop.

Training is tough, no doubt about it. He has to sneak his fixes in between heart-attack inducing surprises and long, dull days spent reading from Kingsman’s expansive library.

(If he’s honest with himself, though, he almost loves those days more than the days they have their physical tests. He’s able to learn so, _so_ much, far more than he ever had the chance to back home and it’s intoxicating)

(Harry is far more intoxicating and Eggsy thanks his lucky stars that the man has taken him under his wing, relishing the way Harry’s presence calms the voices and lamenting his fate because this man, this beautiful man will never, _ever,_ think of Eggsy as anything more than a protégé)

He’s not sure how Harry knows, but it’s not surprising when Harry comes to him in a secluded corner of the library and asks for his matches and lighter. At first he refuses – it’s under control, it ain’t doin’ anybody any harm, it’s not even all that distracting, promise!

_(lie, lie, lie)_

Harry only looks at him, bathed in sunlight from the windows, his hair glowing slightly in a dim halo and Eggsy sucks in a breath and tries not to gape. Under the table his hands are fisted around a used box of matches and he’s so focused on gripping them so he doesn’t lean over the table and run his hands through that infuriatingly perfect hair that he almost misses Harry’s question.

(“You can keep your fire or your position as a Kingsman recruit, Eggsy, but not both. What will you choose?”)

A low blow but Eggsy’ll trade the lukewarm warmth of a match for the blazing heat of Harry any day (and when he has to choose between saving his life and his loyalty to Harry, he chooses Harry. He will always choose Harry).

(The next few weeks are hell and it’s a weird kind of withdrawal - not a physical one but a mental one, like the voices are trying to latch onto something new. It takes a few months for Eggsy to wake up and not want to burn anything to the ground, takes him even longer to admit to Roxy how he got the burns on his fingertips, his hands, his palms, but there’s no surprise in her eyes when he tells her)

But there’s Harry. Harry, who visits him. Harry, who thinks he’s worth something despite his shortcomings. Harry, who lights up a nearby candle whenever Eggsy goes into his office like he knows that even having that one small flame in his vicinity is a great comfort. Harry, who teaches him to have iron control over his want for flames. Harry, who makes the leashes on his demons, usually so taunt, slack. Harry, who makes the voices fade into an almost soothing murmur. Just...Harry.

(And when Harry returns from one of his missions in a coma Eggsy sees red and, after making sure that harry isn't going to die ~~or wake up anytime soon~~ , Eggsy goes into one of the forests surrounding the recruit’s mansion and starts striking matches, one after another, hands trembling and teeth gritted and the voices so loud that he can hear them echo through the night. He lets the flames burn him, lets them redden his fingertips and blister him until he doesn't feel numb. He only just stops himself from razing the forest. When he returns the next morning Merlin gives him a knowing, searching look and patches him up. After, Eggsy suspects that Merlin talked with Roxy because whenever fire is involved Roxy is always by his side, keeping him in line)

Harry wakes up and it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before and _oh god he’s falling so hard._

But then he has to shoot JB and he can’t, _he can’t_ , because he has a code, dammit, and he won't. He’d rather lose what tranquility he’s found in Kingsman and in Harry than take an innocent life.

(He does, oh god he does. He loses Harry and there’s a gaping hole in his chest and the voices are off their leashes the moment he hears the gunshot and he screams. He wails for the safe harbor he lost, for the future he might have had, but screams because he can’t control them now, can’t control it)

(The worst part is: he doesn't want to)

So he kills. He kills and he kills and he kills and he revels in it, in the blood and the adrenaline and the bullets and the voices in his head are singing like they never have before, bloodthirsty and wanton for revenge.

He saves the world.

(He doesn’t take the princess up on her offer. There’s blood on his hands and fire in his veins and voices in his ears and soft brown eyes gazing at him in every reflective surface and he can't _he can't he **can't** )_

(And when he’s finally calmed down and beginning to process it all, only then does he feel the guilt, the pain, the horror of what he’s done. He weeps until he’s red, stumbling into Harry’s house and curling up just inside the threshold of the front door because he can't go any farther - going further into the house means that Harry really is gone and that can’t be, that can’t be)

(But it is)

When he does pick himself up and dusts himself off, he trudges up the stairs and stops in front of Harry’s office door. He almost collapses then and there, and slams the door closed because if he has to look at that room for another second he’s going to burn the house down _he will **he fucking will.**_

(He flees to Harry’s bedroom and curls up on Harry’s bed, the red robe swaddling him, breathing in Harry’s fading scent and drowns in his own despair)

The next morning he steps into HQ and doesn't say a word to anyone. Merlin sticks close and Roxy closer and they all lean on each other in silent support. For once, Eggsy is glad he’s not alone.

  

Months pass. Eggsy swiftly surpasses the other knights in sheer brutality and cunning because he learned them from the best (how else could he have kept the voices in line for so long?). The only problem is that his missions always go up in flames, quite literally to Merlin’s exasperation (Merlin hates it. Hates that he can’t tell Eggsy the truth, hates that he can’t offer any solace, hates that the boy is being devoured by his own demons and seems fine with it, hates that the only person who could save Eggsy from himself is still mostly confined to a hospital bed and learning how to speak again)

  

A year passes. Two. And Eggsy sinks deeper, deeper, into his own hell.

But then Harry returns.

(Eggsy thinks its an illusion, thinks that he’s finally cracked and officially gone mental. The voices only cement his thinking ‘cause if anything they get worse around it, spewing vitriol at the thing because _he’s hurting enough, he’s hurting enough, please please no more, no more._ Eggsy ignores the apparition for three days until he sees Merlin talking to it and then he makes an odd choking noise in the back of his throat, drawing the men’s attention.

(“Eggsy, what –”

“You’re real? You’re alive?”

Merlin’s face is a look of pity but Harry’s, Harry, with his eye patch and white scar and so utterly _alive_ that Eggsy can barely breathe, is shocked)

When Harry steps forward and wraps his arms around Eggsy and presses him close, Eggsy grabs onto his ever-pristine suit like a drowning man and they stay like that, locked together, for hours as Eggsy weeps)

They take the week off. No one says anything because the knights had all seen it - had all seen the way Eggsy’s eyes always glinted wildly, had seen the sharp uptick of his once gentle smile, had seen that smile morph from something to be worried about to something feral, more of a baring of teeth than anything else. They had seen Eggsy go from domesticated to wild and were terrified of him

 

A year later and Eggsy and Harry are married. 

They’re rarely separated, only seen apart whenever Eggsy must take an out of the country mission leaving the newly appointed Arthur to his desk job (which, given the whole ‘shot in the head’ situation, shouldn’t have irked Harry as much, but he missies going out in the field, much to Merlin’s amusement. But Harry knows it’s for the best. Most days his hands shake and he can't aim a gun for shit anymore but his strategic mind is still sharp, if not more so now that he must use it for political maneuvering rather than surviving)

Eggsy’s glad Harry stays at HQ - he can barely let Harry out of his sight on normal days, let alone the days where Merlin permits Harry to take a recruit-level mission.

(Much to Harry’s annoyance, Eggsy trails him for every mission the senior agent takes, ready to bail them out should the need arise. It’s suffocating sometimes but Harry understands. He’s nearly lost Eggsy so many times already that with every mission Eggsy takes it gets just a bit harder to let him go)

 

Five years pass. Five years of relative bliss. Five years of voices and urges growing stronger and stronger. Five years of forcing them down down _down._

Five years of Harry.

(But then)

(Then)

It’s a routine mission that goes to shit in less time than thought possible. Merlin’s yelling in his ear and the flames are growing higher but he can’t leave, not yet _(they lit an apartment building on fire and Eggsy has to save the civilians, has to has to **has to** because he has **his code** that he will break for **no one)**_

_(Not even Harry?)_

_(…Not even Harry.)_

He’s trapped on the sixth floor, hidden in a bedroom with no windows and no way out. He can feel the heat radiating from the walls and can feel the floor beneath him beginning to soften and crumble and he knows he should be terrified, knows he should be fighting for a way out but he isn’t. He isn’t and he’s glad.

**_(Harry)_ **

The thought of his lover is like ice and he shivers with it. The voices are singing louder, louder, and he can’t hear Merlin anymore and there’s still no terror but there is guilt, oh, there is so much guilt - he doesn't want to leave Harry or Daisy or Mum or Roxy or Merlin but he knows fire, knows how it reacts and acts and he knows that even if a team of one hundred firemen appeared right now and began working, he’d still die.

“Eggsy!”

Harry’s voice is a cooling balm from the searing heat and Eggsy collapses into a corner, tears pricking at his eyes, inhaling the black smoke and through garbled gasps he says his goodbyes, says ‘I love you Harry, I love you I love you _I love you I love -’_

(And Harry is standing in front of Merlin’s monitors, knuckles white and spine so straight it’s painful and he can see the flames licking at Eggsy’s oxfords and he’s never felt so helpless in his life. He’s not a religious man but he prays to every god he can think of to spare Eggsy, makes deals with devils just _please, **please** , I was never supposed to outlive him, never supposed to witness his death. Save him. I’ll give you anything, be anything, if you **just. Save. Him.)**_

(But it doesn’t work like that)

And Eggsy gives himself a half second to chuckle at the irony of it all because he’s never, ever felt more alive than in the seconds he’s about to die, the voices singing, and his body thrumming in ecstasy and he wonders if this is what an overdose feels like.

(But then the pain sets in and its _agony_ and he can barely turn off his glasses and then there’s nothing to be thought and all he can do is scream)

Harry stares at the black screens, ears ringing with Eggsy’s ‘I love you’s and there’s nothing. There’s no grief, no pain. He knows he’s crying but there’s only a numbness so complete that he sinks into it like a freezing man buries himself in blankets. He functions on autopilot and arrives at the funeral the next day so calm and collected that he almost hates himself, but the hate is swallowed up by the numbness.

(What he doesn't know is that everyone who sees him, even his agents, even Merlin and Roxy, are terrified of him. They’ve never seen a man look so dead but still be alive, never seen a man look so empty but still be speaking and functioning. And it’s at the funeral that they know - they know that are at Harry’s funeral as much as Eggsy’s)

It takes a few hours for Merlin to track the headquarters of the syndicate responsible for the fire _(a drug lord, of course)_ and it’s like seeing a corpse reanimate. There’s a manic spark in Harry’s eyes and he is no longer Arthur or Galahad or even Harry - he is a wolf baying for blood, a rogue lion hunting for the flesh of man. He is on a warpath and when Merlin sends him away he knows he won’t see Harry again

(He comes back, covered in blood, a few hours later. Eggsy is revenged but it’s not enough, not enough, and the man looks like Harry but isn't - he is Arthur again, going through the motions until death takes him)

 

Death took Harry when death took Eggsy. Death takes Arthur four months later.

 

_(Harry wakes up to blue skies and golden fields and green forests but barely registers it. He only has eyes for the man helping him up, the man with startling blue eyes and fine hair and a smile that has never looked so beautiful)_

_(Finally, they are both free)_


End file.
